Just the other day, I was surfing the web to look for new phone options to upgrade from Samsung Galaxy S10+. I have been using this phone for over five years now and it’s still going strong. However, some fundamental issues are now compelling me to finally splash some cash and get a new device.
Anyway, as I looked through some options, the one thing that seems to be way too common nowadays, especially in the flagship models of phones, is their mentioning of AI features. Tech companies seem to be spamming the term “AI” so much that it’s hard to look past it. In fact, it is the highlight feature of pretty much all the top end devices coming out in 2024. So as a human curiosity rover, I started thinking about AI and how we got to this point (pausing my phone search right there).
A Casual Recap
If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last few years, you’re probably familiar with Artificial Intelligence (AI). But what exactly is an AI and why do every single tech company seems to overuse this term in their products and services these days? To answer that, let’s take a deeper look.
Even though it seems to be suddenly taking over the tech world, AI has been around for quite a long time; longer than you can imagine. If you’re a 90s kid (like me) you might remember the Courage the Cowardly Dog show on Cartoon Network. This comedic horror show featured a character, which was a desktop computer situated in the attic of the family’s house. Courage would ask queries while typing and the computer replied with hilarious and sarcastic comments. It was almost as if there’s a human powering it in the background (which it was).
That’s just one example of pop culture from my childhood. I am sure we are very much familiar with machines getting sentient in movies and tv shows. Other examples include Terminator movies, The Matrix, I, Robot, Blade Runner and countless more. You get the picture.
Even though we were familiar with AI and its qualities in different forms, it all seemed like part of science fiction; something intangible that lies far ahead in the distant future. However, it all quickly changed by the introduction of smart phones.
I am going to stop right here before some smart individuals who might be reading this article start thinking, “Oh, this guy has no clue. The concept of AI has been around since ancient times.” If you’re one of these people; my answer is, you’re right. I have no clue. I am just a regular dude who happens to love tech and write about it. Perhaps I might decide to write another article about AI’s history. Who knows (I know,, but it depends on my mood).
Anyway, back to the topic. So regular people like me discovered the use of AI through smartphones. I remember getting excited after buying a Samsung Galaxy S3 back in 2012 (you have probably figured it out that I am a Samsung fanboy. Not really, I just prefer them over the iPhone). It had this AI speech recognition software called th “S Voice” (so original, Samsung) and I went crazy with it the moment I logged onto the new phone. It would be considered primitive based on today’s standards but it was a mind boggling feature that I used to show it to my friends as a party trick. Of course, iPhone users had us beat with Siri launching a year earlier and baffled the brand faithfuls.
The following years showed massive improvements in both Siri and S Voice. I got to use Siri as well and was equally amazed by its functions. In 2014, a new player entered the chat, Amazon’s Alexa.
Alexa changed the game by not only being an AI app, but also as a separate device that you could place in your home and interact with. It was an instant hit and millions of these devices were sold during its debut year. I once used it at a friend’s home and ordered it to play Despacito.
Years went by and S Voice was replaced by Bixby, probably the most ignored AI app ever. However, Google Assistant was created in 2016 and it took over for most Android devices in order to compete with still strong Alexa.
The AI Era
So here we are then, the new era of AI. The biggest disruption in recent years was created by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. This speech to speech chatbot stirred the pot for the tech world and threatened many jobs at its launch. People were writing books, students using it to solve maths problems and lonely people using it to fill that void in their lives (I feel exposed). It wouldn’t be a stretch to call ChatGPT a revolutionary AI tool that forced all tech giants to follow suit.
Now every big tech company has their own AI behemoths. Google with their Gemini (let’s forget how awful Bard was), Meta with Llama, Microsoft with Copilot, just to mention a few. There are hundreds if not thousands of more AI tools at your disposal right now; most of them are free to try.
AI has also made its way to cars. Pretty much all the high-end cars from big manufacturers are coming out, loaded with AI features. Lane assist, auto-pilot, adaptive cruise control are all AI derivatives.
These were some of the noticeable examples of the advanced technology. If you observe closely, AI has already surrounded us for quite some time. The maps that you use to navigate the traffic, the chatbots that greet you on most of the websites, the ad suggesting you exactly what you were talking about (this one creeps me), the video recommendations on your social platforms etc are all driven by AI. This must serve as a sense of relief that AI is no longer on the horizon, it’s already here.
What’s Next?
I don’t have the answer for this. Go ask someone smart!
..
If you’re still here, I’ll share my opinion.
Well, there are many ways to look at what the future holds in the world with AI. Whether you like it or not, we have entered the age of AI and it’s only just the beginning. In just a couple of years we have gone from that nightmarish “Will Smith eating spaghetti” to him slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars. Wait… You get the point. There are AI tools capable of creating hyper realistic videos by just text prompts; and they are only getting better and better by the day. Mimicking voices is as it gets. This progress seems a bit scary and it is hard to predict how it will benefit us in the coming days.
On the other hand, some AI tools are here to enhance our productivity. Like for example, Samsung’s live call translation, Google’s amazing photo editing, and Apple’s “innovations” when it finally catches up.
The video game industry is also set to get a boost, even though it already had it years before we even noticed it (I am talking about NPCs). This one excites me as your friendly neighbourhood gamer.
Overall, AI is that next step that is going to define this century, just as modern computers did for the 20th century. And to fellow peasants who are scared to lose their jobs: don’t be. Evolve with the tech, embrace it and use it to excel yourself.